


Night of Orianna's Undeath

by Thalissa (ThalissaRemnant)



Series: Thali's DnD Stories [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:23:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9389030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThalissaRemnant/pseuds/Thalissa
Summary: A Tiefling has been brought back from the dead by the vampire lord, Strahd, and she hates what she's become. Nightmares consume her attempts to sleep the night following her revival, and she fears for what her party might do to her if they find out what she is now: A vampire.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For context, Orianna is a Tiefling sorcerer in a campaign set in Ravenloft. She was eaten by an Eldritch monster, but as a bargaining chip, she was brought back from the dead by Strahd. Now, she's a vampire spawn, and she has to cope with the trauma of what she is, and the possibilities of what her party might do.

"I'm not a monster," the Tiefling whispered into the air, half of her face hidden into a pillow, the other half staring blankly into the side of a wall. Shivers constantly ran up her spine as she laid there, attempting to try and sleep, but she couldn't focus enough to rest when she could feel a consistent, lingering presence of something evil throughout her entire body.

 

Like when magic surged through her veins, she could now feel some other force inside her body, binding her to this world after having been consumed by some Eldritch abomination. It scared her, it made her feel empty, like she wasn't meant to be here. She wasn't, and yet here she was, laying in bed, breathing heavy. Shivering. Bound to this world as Strahd's vampire spawn.

 

Delma was on the other side of the room, watching over her, but that only surged more fear through her inhuman body. Her tail, coiled around one of her legs, dug deeper into her skin reflexively. A Paladin of all things would know if she was a monster, right? She would know… She would kill her if she was. It took all of the Tiefling’s self-restraint to keep from screaming, from waking up the others in her party, as much as she wanted to.

 

The icy shivers still ran deep across her body. She couldn’t stay warm--she couldn’t stay still, either. She had to get up, move, make sure she was still alive, she still had  _ control _ . She wasn’t going to be a puppet--she wasn’t. She had to find some way… Some way to not be like Strahd, some way to not be a monster, some way to not have  _ that _ monster pull her strings like she was a toy.

 

She had to try to sleep. The daylight would calm--and that’s when she felt the very tip of her tail piercing into her thigh, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands, and her teeth biting down hard into her lips to keep herself from screaming. Not from her own, self-inflicted pain, but from pure, undiluted  _ fear _ of what her party would find out. She would have to go out into the sunlight eventually, what would she do? They would  _ know _ . She felt something similar to tears rolling down the side of her face, and as she began to sniffle and contain herself, she made an attempt to calm herself, think of anything but the present. She wasn’t going to make any progress if she just laid there and thought herself as a monster. She wasn’t going to let herself be a monster.

 

As stress built up in her muscles only to then release in one complete sweep, she could soon feel herself settle. She just had to keep repeating to herself: She wasn’t going to let herself become a monster. She wasn’t going to let herself become a monster. She wasn’t going to let herself become a puppet of a vampire lord. Eventually, she began to feel the world drift away from her, her shivers stopping and her thoughts clearing. Then she slept.

 

Screaming. Whose screaming was that? It didn’t take her long to realise that it was her own, of course. Then a wave of thoughts, of visions, of  _ nightmares _ began to drown her, and she felt her hand clamp over her mouth in order to quiet herself.

 

Horrible, horrible nightmares--that  _ monster _ eating her over and over again, not being able to save herself from being lost to Strahd’s manipulation, attacking Delma and watching as the Paladin defended herself by cutting into the Tiefling-Vampire’s skin. She faintly remembered an intense burning sensation across her flesh, radiant light filling her body-- _ destroying _ her body--and for a moment she panicked. Her hand raced down to her stomach, fingers rubbing and touching the spot where she was stabbed in her dreams, and soon she heard herself letting out quiet, half-choked sobs.

 

Was this her life now? Filled with nightmares, filled with constant regret that she wasn’t able to take care of herself, filled with gut-wrenching  _ fear _ that she was to kill those who once protected her, or be killed by them? She couldn’t hold it in anymore, and suddenly she felt her shivers return, and her sobbing grew louder. She didn’t even think she had control over whether she could hold it in or not.

 

She couldn’t tell herself anything about what was going on, about how long had passed since she had woken up, but she attempted sleep a second time for the night. Attempting to get a stable breathing pattern was the hardest part for her, for the second her sobbing began to settle, she could see that  _ monster _ through closed eyes again. The only thing she could truly do was wait for her body to tire itself out, and then hope that sleep would overwhelm her body enough for her.

 

The second time she awoke, she was more conscious of her screaming, but she still couldn’t control it. It simply let itself out and refused to be contained, and she couldn’t even move her hands to muffle it. She then felt herself drift away again, shaking her head back and forth. She could even hear herself faintly whispering “Not a monster, get away, I’m not a monster” before she slipped back into unconsciousness, for the final time of the night.


End file.
